Tim Hortons Explosion Kills 1

[Tati]

PAUL CHOI
STAFF REPORTER

One person is dead after an explosion inside a Tim Hortons in the downtown core Sunday afternoon and another Tim Hortons store was evacuated after a suspicious package was found.

Emergency personnel responded to a report of an explosion at a Tim Hortons location on Yonge St. near Bloor St. shortly after 1 p.m.

"It's my understanding it was an explosion of some sort, but I don't know the origin of it or what precipitated it," said Staff Sgt. Ron Aalen.

One person had no vital signs when EMS crews arrived, an ambulance spokeswoman said.

Police later confirmed that one person -- a male -- had died. Police would only say that the victim was in the washroom at the time of the explosion.

A Tim Hortons spokesman confirmed the dead man was not an employee, but his identity was not immediately known.

Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang; police said no one else was involved and there were no other injuries.

Eunice Almeida, 23, a regular patron of the Tim Hortons outlet, said she spoke to employees shortly after it was evacuated. One woman told her the blast was felt as a sudden shock through the store.

“There was an explosion in the men’s washroom, then there was a stampede and everybody ran out,” said Almeida.

Officers in white hazardous-materials suits were seen entering and leaving the store but it was not clear whether a potentially dangerous substance had been identified.

There is no word yet on the cause of the explosion but fire department spokesman Daryl Fuglerud said on the scene that the victim had some burns to his body. No other injuries were reported.

Officers have since cordoned off the area between Bloor St. and Asquith Ave. and a bomb squad has been called in to investigate the scene.

At about 3 p.m., another Tim Hortons location near Yonge St. and Lawrence Ave. was evacuated by emergency personnel after employees there discovered what they believed to be a suspicious package and reported the finding to police.

Investigators cordoned off the area near the store, located at 3222 Yonge St., and the police bomb squad has since been called in to investigate the package.

With files from Canadian Press

Source: Toronto Star

link: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968793972154

Err... wtf? I'd really like to find out more about this story. Why the hazmat team? What was the suspicious package at the second location? Why are our donuts under attack?

[deckchick]

Noooooo!! not our Timmy's!

I blame it on the crack-heads... Probably mistook the sugar coated boston creme for coke and tried to free-base the motherfucker..God knows what chemicals are stuffed into those donuts...

[moomies]

I live right next to a Timmy H's...scared

[misskris]

i imagine it's a political statement with very little to do with tim hortons. simply to do with the fact that it would be spread across the news and felt by all canadians because so many of us frequent timmy's.

[Tati]

Here's an update, such as it is:

Investigators have ruled out terrorism as a cause for a "very intense, very hot flash fire" in a downtown Tim Hortons Sunday that brought the intersection of Yonge and Bloor Sts. to a halt.
The incident, shortly after 1 p.m., sent dozens of patrons scrambling out of the coffee shop after a "wall of flames" erupted from the men's washroom.

Police found the burned body of a man in one of the washroom cubicles and, according to one report, a gas can nearby. Attempts to revive the man were not successful.

Coroner Dr. Jim Edwards ruled out terrorism.

"There's been nothing to suggest any type of terrorist activity," he said. "Absolutely."

Edwards said pathologists at an autopsy scheduled for Monday will seek to identify the man using fingerprints and dental records.

Staff Sgt. Don Cole said about the only thing police knew for sure was that something caught fire.

As the investigation continued police were able to rule out initial reports that a man had entered the washroom shortly before the blast with explosives strapped to his body. But they did find signs the fire was caused by gasoline or a similar accelerant.

"He's not a strap-on Al Qaeda bomber guy," Cole said. "It sounds to me like a guy who either wanted to do a torch job or commit suicide.

Cole said a customer noticed the smell of gasoline on entering the washroom, then spotted a gas can, Cole said. The customer beat a hasty retreat, fleeing the washroom only moments before the explosion, he added.

When the gas ignited, Cole added, the resulting blast brought the ceiling down on the victim. With it came a significant amount of debris, including wires and batteries from an air-freshening device that might have contributed to suspicions of a bomb, he noted.

"It appears there was a device, but we don't know whether the person brought it in with him, or if he was an innocent party, or if he was a suicide, we just don't know," Cole said. "It's not something that just blew up by itself, it was some device."

A Tim Hortons employee, who was mopping the kitchen floor inside the iconic Canadian coffee shop at the time, described the sound of the erupting flames as a "large door being slammed."

It was loud enough to wake an area resident in his nearby Asquith Ave. apartment.

"I was sleeping and it woke me up," said the man, who only wanted to be identified as Jackson. "I came outside and the police were already here, people were running down the street and I didn't know what was going on."

He wasn't the only one.

In the frantic minutes after the fire initial reports at the scene ranged from a subway bombing gone wrong to a terror suicide bombing to a local addict firing up a crack pipe. Coming in the wake of 9/11, Canada's increasing involvement in Afghanistan and heightened security concerns worldwide, the incident caught the immediate attention of Canada's security agencies.

But Toronto police Chief Bill Blair, who attended the scene, was quick to dampen speculation.

"The scene indicates there was a very intense, very hot flash fire that took place at that location," Blair told reporters in a news conference at the scene. When the first police and firefighters arrived, he said, they found the body.

"At that time a male, his identity has not yet been determined, was found suffering from severe burns to most of his body. It appears there has been a very hot and intense fire in an enclosed area within the washroom."

Jenny Phillips, an eyewitness, described bangs like pops from a firecracker and, as she fled the washroom area, a scream "that will haunt me forever."

Phillips said she smelled burn powder and saw a "wall of flames" inside the men's washroom before staff herded the store's two dozen customers outside.

"I thought the roof was caving in," she said. "People were screaming."

Toronto Transit officials were also quick to quell rumour in the confused aftermath of the fire.

"They'd have to be stupid bombers if they were aiming for the subway and hit a Tim Hortons," said TTC chairman Howard Moscoe, living up to his reputation for plain speaking. "It sounds like a tall tale."

The TTC did close one of its entrances to the Yonge-Bloor subway station - the automated entrance just metres down the street from the Tim Hortons outlet - but the trains kept running.

"It didn't affect us in any way," said TTC spokesperson Marilyn Bolton. "The reason we closed it was so that people wouldn't be exiting into the crime scene. We've been operating all through the thing; we've had our stations open except for that one exit point."

Hundreds of curious bystanders crowded up against police barriers and watched avidly as a bomb detection robot was rolled out, then cringed as a "suspicious" bag was blown up where it was found by the bomb squad.

Less than a block away sidewalk patios were filled with winter-weary Torontonians out to soak up the sunshine on a lazy spring afternoon and afternoon shoppers strolled along the sidewalks.

But police, taking no chances, gradually increased the exclusion zone, pushing back the curious and asking an increasing number of local businesses to close their doors. The nearby Metro Reference Library was also evacuated, hundreds of patrons sent packing while police used the lobby to interview stunned Tim Hortons staffers.

Fears were further heightened a couple of hours after the downtown incident when a suspicious package was reported at a Tim Hortons on Yonge St. north of Lawrence.

Some officials worried that the two incidents might be linked, especially in view of plans by the iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut outlet to open a branch to serve Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. The outlet, planned for the base in Kandahar, is not yet open.

Blair said the north Toronto incident was due to heightened security concerns.

"We got a call about 3 p.m." about the Yonge and Lawrence incident, Blair said.

"After it became known this (downtown) event had transpired, there was a call by the people who worked at Tim Hortons doughnuts that a package had been left by a customer," at the Yonge and Lawrence location, he said. "They just were concerned about it given what had transpired here, and so the police had gone up to ensure that that's safe."

The yellow shopping bag, containing an alarm clock, was found between two dumpsters behind the store and blown up with a concussion charge. Investigators found a flea market's $2 price tag on the clock, but nothing else in the bag.

But the scene downtown continued to keep firefighters, police and other first responders on tenterhooks for much of the afternoon as they struggled to unravel the case.

At one point, a black, wheeled suitcase, found beside a garbage bin at the corner of Cumberland and Yonge Sts., was blown up by the bomb squad. A bomb detection robot travelled into the Tim Hortons outlet to provide investigators with video and other evidence.

...

Source: Toronto Star

Link: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968793972154